


baby's black balloon (makes him fly)

by KeyDog (BannedBloodOranges)



Series: Dizzy Up [2]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Aos!Spock is so much more "human" to me then his counterpart, Besotted Spock, Cute Vulcan Children, Every Title Of This Series Will be a reference to Goo Goo Dolls or so help me, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Gently Sneaky Spock, Humour, Implied Scotty/Uhura/Kirk, Love Realisation, M/M, Post-Star Trek Beyond, Romance, Surak scopes out his future son in law, Touch Telepathy, Unsure McCoy, references to past relationships, spones - Freeform, starting a relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-21 06:16:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20688872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BannedBloodOranges/pseuds/KeyDog
Summary: "Maybe he had got under Spock's skin, found a place where he unintentionally fixed himself, like a hardy screw in a chewed up plank of wood that when jammed, refuses to get out. At home, his father had tonnes of that shit. Graveyards of wood stuffed with stubborn nails that wouldn't budge in a month of Sundays..."During the months between the remaking of the Enterprise and the eve of their second five-year mission, Leonard McCoy finds a home in the unlikeliest of places.





	baby's black balloon (makes him fly)

**Author's Note:**

> Non-profit fun only.  
That strange feeling when Beyond made me like AOS!Spock and ship Spones.

_Comin' down the years turn over_  
_And angels fall without you there_  
_And I'll go on and I'll lead you home and_  
_All because I'm_  
_All because I'm_  
_And I'll become_  
_What _ **you** _ became to _ **m****e**

_Black Balloon_, Goo Goo Dolls

* * *

* * *

The oxygen on New Vulcan required a hypo at dawn to brave the early sun, another at noon to halt the heat chewing his lungs come midday, and another at sundown so he could sleep without suffocating in Spock's low ceilings and tapestry walls. 

He'd medicated premature to their return trip to New Vulcan, directly after a (well enjoyed) respite visit to earth. After dinner with Kirk and Uhura (oddly united, if you ask him, which no-one ever does) and before that, a dinner with Sarek (which Leonard had been invited to, for some bizarre reason, upon which Sarek had asked some searching questions, and Spock had sat and eaten the bitter greens they called food without a murmur.)

He thought back to the message he had received just days after Jim's birthday.

_ Dear Leonard. _

Words didn't have tones or accents, but the softness of that address had tingled through the fingers skirting across the screen. In a shaky, confused part of him, he knew he couldn't say no. 

So like an idiot, he didn't. And when he arrived in New Vulcan, a progressing city of neat rectangles and smart streets beneath a blazing sky, did he find Spock there to greet him in the spaceport. When he opened his mouth and started talking, did Spock raise one eyebrow and it was like as if nothing had changed.

Except partway through their back and forth, did Spock's lips settle into a strange lilt and he called him "Leonard." Not Doctor, not McCoy, but a gentle "Leonard."

That should have been the first warning.

But it had been a_ logical _choice to draft him at New Vulcan in the inbetweening months before the eve of their second five-year mission. McCoy was uncommonly qualified in handling Vulcan medicine; he'd operated on Spock many a time, issued specialised hypos, exchanged fluids and even organs, and had been pivotal in those unhappy hours after Vulcan (even through the years carried on, the hulk of the catastrophe could be felt thrumming in everyone's memory, in the galaxy itself, in Selek's empty house.)

But now, back home (it wasn't home, was it, but his lease on his flat had run out in San Fransisco, and so what if Spock had insisted he moved his few things into the cool house in New Vulcan) the first thing to do was see to the children.

He disliked the school with the blue lights and white hallways, the chrome floors with the "learning bowls" scooped into the marble, long lines of sombre children with bowl cuts in black robes with long sleeves. But they needed their shots, their look overs, as much as if they'd been spotty, messy schoolchildren from a southern farm. Usually, Spock would accompany him, but there was work to do in the labs. He'd been at the school weekly since Jim's birthday, and had learnt all their names, answered their dry demanding questions, been followed by lines of their pattering feet, been told off for his smiles and attempts at comfort (no child liked injections, regardless of where they came from.)

A small screen and two chairs had been propped in the usual place in the assembly hall. Unlocking his med box, he laid out all the hypos on metal trays. It was a routine he'd become too familiar with.

"You are exactly 2 minutes 47.5 seconds late," piped up the first child, a tiny figure drowned in a robe with a bowl cut only a desperate mother could be proud of. Behind him, a line of fifteen children awaited, all silent, all hollow-eyed. Most had been born after the tragedy, clinging to remnants of a culture struggling hungrily to survive, the first generation of a broken world trying to rebuild itself. The older ones had lost entire families. McCoy looked down at the stern little face, and all the faces behind it, and realised with a jolt that they all bore the same expression. They'd gotten _used_ to him. In a world violently changing, he'd been a constant, at least for a while, and as in response to his realisation, they approached him in a half-circle, cradling him back into his chair. A grumpy, illogical doctor, who handled them gently none the less, who'd secretly pushed lollipops into their unresponsive little hands, who administrated the hypos with an illogical distraction. _What's your favourite colour? What do you want for your birthday? What exactly is a Sehlat, anyway?_

He cleared his throat.

"I'm sorry," He sat down, without rolling his eyes or clucking his tongue. "I struggled with the heat. It won't happen again."

The line of faces turned up toward him. McCoy felt craned in, suffocated, but not unhappy. A little afraid, maybe, for reasons he couldn't quite explain.

"You are forgiven," they said, in perfect unison.

McCoy had to administer his treatments quicker, with little illogical distraction, to hide the salt in his eyes.

* * *

"Forgive me, Leonard." Spock awaited him outside the school, stood tall at the bottom of the stairs. Even in the heat he wore his high necked robe, buttoned immaculate to the pale swallow of his throat. "There was a matter that required my immediate attention."

"Don't worry about it," He mumbled, jumping down the stairs two at a time (and instantly regretting it, for all the heat.) "They're all done for today..."

He tripped on the final step. The world turned over and over and arms caught him, cradled him, laid him down on the ground. Spock's face, doused in shadow, blocked the harsh daylight. His brows were closed tight, eyes deep and intense. McCoy blacked out, only to come to moments later, Spock's hands on his cheeks, a hypo hissing into his neck. The pounding in his head eased. Without a care for the mortified onlookers, he gripped at Spock's shoulders to gain his footing.

A tingling ran across his fingers. It thrummed in his arm, touched the back of his head, swivelled soft in his brain. He coughed back his discomfort, running his hand through his sweaty hair, only to see the most curious expression on Spock's face.

_ Children. They know me. That makes me sad because I care and I try not to, and even though they pretend not to care, they care in their way, and that reminds me of... _

McCoy broke the touch, running his sweaty palm down his shirt. 

"Sorry," He muttered. Touch telepaths or no, it was unlike Spock to be so sensitive, so unguarded, especially to him. Maybe it was just Leonard's own openness, the fact he felt so open, so raw as if his own self-control (which was pretty weak at best) was failing him.

"Think nothing of it..." This was it; when they were going to return to job titles. He waited for the inevitable "Doctor." Maybe it would set things straight again. "..._Leonard."_

Damn.

* * *

That afternoon, they returned to Spock's house (he was more than happy they weren't sharing with Surak. He kept looking at Leonard as if he wanted, in his own inexpressive way, to eat him.) After fighting with the replicator for their chosen meal, and with each other (Spock didn't have enough nutrients in his diet, dammit, and boiled vegetables and wheat was rabbit food, and surely some kind of dairy or gluten or something in the menu would make mealtimes a touch more interesting, thank you very much -) they settled down for the evening.

Like, actually_ settled _down. He and Spock exchanged medical reports, catalogued data about the new breeding programs and the health of the children on New Vulcan, finished documents and signed off statements.

After, with a full belly and a worn mind, Leonard sunk onto the only human thing in the lounge; an old, soft human sofa. He exhaled loudly, kicked up his socked feet, retrieved a tot of brandy and opened his PaDD for an old novel. 

For a while, he indulged, relaxed in the familiar burn of his drink, the cosy old words of a book he'd reread enough times to recall by heart.

A soft inhale broke his reverie.

Spock was sat opposite, bare-chested, legs crossed and hands spread on his knees in meditation.

Spock, hopelessly private, never meditated in company. Leonard walked in on him the first day he'd arrived in New Vulcan and retreated with a quick apology and a snort at his stupid need to be topless (who was he trying to impress, anyway?)

But here he was, vulnerable, trusting, in full view. His ribs expanded and fell with his careful pull of breath, ripples of muscle from his broad shoulders, and it was as if -

As if he wanted Leonard to -

Heat torched the ends of Leonard's ears. Like a schoolgirl he buried himself behind his PaDD, grumbling beneath his breath. Between this and the damn creepy kids of the corn, he was really losing his damn mind. 

There was nothing to stop him from leaving the room.

He went to move, to swing his legs around, to disappear to his bedroom. 

But he didn't.

He glowered at Spock, at the length of floor between them, and remained stubbornly in place, despite himself. 

He didn't want to move, didn't want to -

His PaDD blared to life with a thunder of _Eye Of The Tiger. _

"Damn!" He stumbled to his feet, spilling his drink over himself. Dammit, Jim and his habit of changing his goddamn ringtone..!

Juggling the PaDD and swearing apologies at Spock, he tried (and failed) to get past, to take refuge in the bedroom.

Spock cracked open a single eye.

"Classical music, Doctor?"

_ Doctor. _

"Shit, I'm..." 

He tripped over the stretch of Spock's leg. The PaDD clattered to the floor; Spock rose quickly, and suddenly there was an arm under his stomach, another around his shoulder. The shadows of the encroaching evening played on the bemused dips of his brow, his cheek, the space between his lips. Leonard's throat was dry as a desert.

**"Hey, Bones!" **

The PaDD sprang to life, crammed full of three smiling faces. There was Uhura, her hair fluttering wildly about her beaming face, caught in her lips and lashes; Jim, his arm squeezed around her shoulder, and Scotty fighting to get between them, a drink in his hand and a cooing tribble lodged securely on his shoulder. In the background, Porthos could be seen hanging off the back of an antique truck, his ears spinning in the wind, howling out into the moors.

Leonard broke apart from Spock, fishing the PaDD off the floor. Spock retreated to the side of the room, buttoning his shirt to his neck.

"Dammit, Jim," Leonard fought the husk from his voice. "Can you not send a warning like a normal person?"

"No can do, Bones," Jim was merry, to say the least. The cold had peaked two pink spots on his cheek, big eyes all cheeky blue. His gaze slid to Spock in the background, and with a smirk, he winked. "Didn't interrupt anything, did we?"

"Just my goddamn patience," He sat down at the table. Their twinned plates, empty from the hotly contested meal, was still sat on the table, the scented candle between the porcelain burnt down to a wick. With a cough, he pushed it to the side. "How's Scotland, anyway?"

"Amazing, Leonard!" Uhura was laughing into Jim's neck. "It's so cold, Nugget keeps going into hibernation. I had to rub the poor _ wee bairn _ for strength!" 

"Cannae I just say..." Scotty fell in between them, Nugget rolling happily into Uhura's hands. "I've never been so jealous of a fluffball in me life..."

"Get out of it!" Jim shoved him back. Keenser, propped in the background, snorted and went back to playing on his vintage Nintendo Switch. "Nobody wants to pet your fluffy balls...!"

"We've just climbed Ben Nevis, and..." Uhura struggled back to the forefront, pushing their heads together. She was wearing no makeup. Maybe all that Scottish mist had blown it off. "...you wouldn't believe the view! Jim and I have been investigating the core of the Gaelic dialects, and you should see the cultural and political history..."

Jim popped back into view.

"It's a minefield, Bones," He chirped. "More blood and boobs than you can..."

Spock glided gracefully in the space behind Leonard's shoulder.

Jim shut his mouth with a chuckle, making no effort to move from Nyota's side.

"Jim. Nyota." Spock nodded in greeting. "Mr Scott."

"Hey." Leonard lay back in his chair, arms crossed. "How's it going, Nugget?"

The tribble squeaked, affirmingly.

"All good, Doc!" Scotty slurred. They all seemed so happy, the three of them, beers in hand and tangled together in sweater vests and jeans. It was an odd, homely sight, one he should feel jealous of. Hard-wearing air, good friends, a stiff drink. Yet here, in the cool enclave of Spock's home, he felt content. Like maybe he didn't need to be hanging off Jim's arm at every opportunity. That maybe he was okay, here, with Spock as a quiet, gentle company.

It was a weird thought, one he couldn't get out of his head, and as if waking something dormant, he looked away. 

Drunk, they all chattered away, stories and anecdotes piling up, all finishing each other's sentences like siblings. Leonard stole a look back at the screen. No, not siblings, not with the way Uhura's hand was clasped on Kirk's thigh, not where Jim's arm was, hooked around her waist as opposed to her shoulder. Their faces were so close, air a pseudo kiss between their lips, even as Scotty slid in between them with disconcerting ease, rising yet more speculation he didn't have the brain space for. He shot a glance at Spock. The man was relaxed, tilted back in his chair, lips softened in the faint hint of a smile. But there was nothing else, no reproach, no discomfort. He caught Leonard's eye and raised an eyebrow. Clearing his throat, Leonard slung himself over Spock's chair, trying and failing to be casual. 

"That sounds fantastic, really," he deadpanned. "But frankly, you're all drunk as skunks, and I hope to god there's a designated driver."

"Don't worry Bones, Nugget has got us covered."

"God help me, Jim..."

"It's Keenser, Leonard," Uhura said breezily. Everyone was so casual with his first name as of late. "He's sworn off Scotch as long as he's driving. I promise we'll be safe."

Leonard growled.

"Promise?"

"Promise," they trilled in unison. Nugget squeaked and burrowed further into Uhura's neck.

"Leonard may be rough in his concern," Spock's breath against his ear made him jump, shiver. "But I can assure you his concern is genuine. Please attempt to take care, at least for the sake of stalling his human anxiety."

"Patronising hobgoblin," Leonard muttered, only to find three pairs of eyes all peering at him far too knowingly. Jesus Christ, was he that transparent? Was there some huge cosmic joke he was not a part of? (that could be the story of his life, really, especially when he took a seat on a shuttlecraft next to a cocky punk with a scabbed lip.)

"Yeah, yeah," he waved Spock off, his heart pounding up to his scarlet ears. "Just no toppling off Ben Neville or whatever. Get some rest and water into you three before you fall over."

There were a barrage of promises, of giggling and goodbyes and trilling from that damn tribble, before the screen went blank.

The ensuing silence was deafening.

Without a word, Leonard switched off the PaDD. So large and infectious was the happiness of the three, it had caught him off guard. But it was a true, unbridled _joy _. He hadn't seen that in Jim since he'd taken the seat of the Entreprise, not in Uhura ever, he thought; she'd always been so sedated and careful, even in close company. Scotty, despite all his Scottish swagger, was uncommonly gentle, the most acutely human of all of them, the one friend he could drown his sorrows in, as opposed to the other way around.

All three of them seemed to fit together, like a puzzle that had taken a long time coming together, and now it was fixed, had found a happy ultimatum. 

He expected to feel jealous, but instead, he felt oddly okay. Content, with something that wasn't his, and something he hadn't ever expected to be his. 

"Glad to know they're having a good time," he muttered, turning on his heel to the bedroom. "Hope they don't get too stinkin..."

Spock had shifted from the table, his hands held behind his back. There was a tight expectation in his expression.

Leonard swallowed.

Spock was waiting.

For what?

_ For you. _

Oh, sweet Jesus.

"What is it?" He jammed his finger into Spock's chest. The room still rang with the ghost of Jim's laughter. "What is it, goddamn you?" 

Spock released his hands, lifting them to Leonard's face.

Leonard froze.

He skimmed Leonard's cheek with his fingers, with his lips in that half crooked lean, like a smile. And Leonard, frozen, in the lounge with the sun bleeding through the high, vast windows, dyeing everything in wicked tender red. Spock was moving, oh so slow, his palm sliding around his waist, cupping his back. The shadows leant in the curve of his neck, as he dipped his lips to ghost Leonard's jawbone, to taste the pulse there. 

Confined by the moment, Leonard just managed to jerk his head, only for Spock to look at him. There was a frayed kind of confidence present in his touch, a sweet and bitter question, and Leonard could never have predicted the poetry of this. It was so unlike anything that had come before. It carried a singular spirit that left him raw, uncertain, almost _angry_ to be faced with something like this.

Leonard's hand stumbled to his shoulder, stirring the hair slicked around the tips of his ears, to the prickle of his stubble running dark down his cheeks and chin. He swallowed, unsure, placing his hands on Spock's face. It was as he did in the dim light of the ruins on their last adventure, to detect the tumult of muscule and tongue, of breath. It had been intimate, but as a Doctor, you had to possess the gift of indifferent intimacy. He'd both succeeded and failed spectacularly with Kirk, and now, on a grander level, with Spock.

Spock held him so close; Leonard feared he would crack like a dry branch on the wings of the harsh southern wind, be torn from his home tree and be swallowed by the sweeping river. He opened his mouth to protest; Spock's lips touched his. It was wet and awkward, their noses crushed together; but a rhythm smoothed them out, Leonard's hands around the neck, Spock's on his back and waist.

"Spock, I-I think..." _ You're delirious. _

"Leonard." He liked the way he said his name. It made him shiver, crept goosebumps up his arms. "This may be the time to postpone thought."

He was serious. Oh god, Spock was _serious. _

They'd moved past the frayed ends of their friendship, somehow slipped past _themselves_ in something fast, deep, maybe dangerous. It wasn't as simple as liking someone, as facile as a crush. It was like a violent suck down a plughole and Leonard was the thin trickle of water trying to climb _out. _

He wasn't drunk enough for this, especially as Spock's fingertips tickled up his waist, riding the shirt up to the centre of his back.

"Leonard." He kept saying his name. No, he wasn't prepared. Not his bruised old heart, not ready for the scab to be eviscerated so neatly and painlessly, laying out all that pink tender, ready for inspection, for handling, for crushing by clumsy hands (but Spock was anything but clumsy.) "I find myself quite affected, by you."

"By me," He said dryly. Spock's head slotted into the grove of his neck with a practised ease, his arms squeezing him tight, tighter. "Spock, you..."

He didn't believe in shoving people away. Many people spent their entire lives crying for love, for affection. Hell, he'd been one of them, before Jocelyn. But Spock was handing himself to him, oblivious to the prospect of rejection, and then he _got_ it. Like a punch to his gut by one of Kirk's exes. 

When Spock, between all the layers of bleeding out, bitchin', and grieving, had finally sat down and just _told_ Leonard. No halfway banter, no tiptoeing, no pulling emotion like teeth. In the simplest conversation Spock had ever had, he'd told Leonard about his fear, his failure to love, about Jim and Uhura and the Ambassador and Leonard had sat beside him and nodded and said: "I can't imagine what that was like for you."

He'd just accepted it because he was a Doctor and Spock was his friend, and they both had Jim to contend with and -

That was it. Was that it?

So he tried to grasp something he couldn't grasp, with Spock nestled in his body and his fingers tugging free all the rumples of Spock's robe. The idea that maybe he had got under Spock's skin, found a place where he unintentionally fixed himself, like a hardy screw in a chewed up plank of wood that when jammed, refuses to get out. At home, his father had tonnes of that shit. Graveyards of wood stuffed with stubborn nails that wouldn't budge in a month of Sundays. 

Leonard McCoy never budged. It wasn't in his DNA to give up. It's what broke him in the first place when Jim first found him, half-drunk and locked in a shuttle bathroom.

He was breaking again. Differently, but he was breaking, and through the windows, he saw their reflections, ghosts breathed on the glass.

And he gave in, like a fool. He kissed back, hard, then placed his forehead against Spock's, and smiled, tears hurting his eyes in sharp sentiments. 

"Yes, Leonard?" There was the slightest quiver of hesitation, the first note of doubt, and Leonard shook his head.

"...don't have to say it," he mumbled.

They stood together in that damn poetic light, the sun roving over the deep sky into the dusk, and as the heat thinned, it became light, became breathable.

**Author's Note:**

> I wonder how Uhura, Kirk and Scotty are faring in Scotland...?  
(Sequel time.)


End file.
